One of the most parts of my childhood were report cards. Do you remember that sick feeling you'd get when it was report card time? I was not a fan. It's not that I wasn't smart or that my grades were bad, it was that there was always the same comment that followed me throughout elementary, middle, and high school.
"Jessica is a great student but talks too much during class."
I got better at controlling it in high school. College was even better. I started to learn when it was appropriate to speak and better to sit quietly. Unfortunately, just because you get better at controlling your tongue, doesn't mean you master it.
I recently had an "oops" moment. I let my mouth fly off the handle. My words were careless. I spoke for a reaction and not a purpose. As soon as I spoke, I wished I could just reverse the clock and have a do-over of that situation. Unfortunately, life doesn't work like that, although sometimes I wish it did. Nobody mentioned anything in the moment so I hoped my careless comments had slipped by without anyone taking notice. But that's not the way things work either. You speak and people listen. It's such a blessing and a curse. A woman that was there when I spoke and is sort of a mentor to me pulled me aside yesterday and corrected me. It stung, but I also know it was necessary. She wasn't mad at me, she just values me enough to correct me and hold me accountable to the things I say and do. I instantly took full responsibility for what I said but my first reaction was, "Get me out of here." I have a pretty weird reaction to accountability. I love it. I love that my friends love me enough to care about the things I say and do, but I never want to let people down so I am terrified of when I have to own up to things. For a twenty six year old woman, I still can act like a child a lot of the time.
I wish that I always made the right choice 100% of the time. I wish that the things I said were always good and lovely. I wish that my thoughts were always pure and Godly. I wish that I was better than I am, but I'm not. I'm just trudging through this world making one flip comment at a time and then tuckin' my tail. It's good to always be learning and growing, but sometimes I wish it didn't hurt like it does.
Despite the misleading title of this blog, I am not super adventurous. I long to be more adventurous (see what I did there?) but I often allow fear to keep me at bay. This weekend, a group of my friends decided to go skiing. I made excuses right away for why I couldn't go.
Oh, I would but I don't have snow stuff.
I should really work on my paper.
I'm not any good.
Isn't it foolish how fear can keep us from doing really small things? Honestly, I was afraid I wouldn't be good and was afraid I'd embarrass myself. I got a sudden burst of bravery, or rather, I came to my senses and said, "Sure! Count me in!" I called up a friend to borrow some snow gear and headed up to 'ol Bogus Basin with my pals on Sunday evening.
I haven't skied since I was just a wee lass. I am pretty sure the last time I went was before I was in second grade, so yeah, you could say it's been a while. I did go snowboarding once in high school but that one time was enough to keep me from wanting to try it again. I didn't get out of bed the next day because I was so sore from toppling down the mountain. I thought instead of subjecting myself to that torture again, I'd try my hand at skiing again.
My friends are lovely people, but they are not the greatest of teachers. I hopped on my skis and hit the bunny slope with my friend Justin, who had never skied before. We rode the magic carpet up, obviously. There was no way I was getting on the lift. Last time I went on a lift, I fell off and got smacked in the back of the head with the chair part. It was not my most glamorous moment. The magic carpet was right up my alley. The first time I rode down the hill, I handled it like a champ. I was feeling pretty good about myself and came dangerously close to renaming myself, "Picabo Street." I hopped up on the magic carpet again, but my second run didn't go as seamlessly as my first. I started going so fast and had no idea how to slow myself down let alone stop, so instead of running straight into a the base of the life (which was dead ahead), I decided to throw myself down into the snow. Real classy. I tried to hop right up, but there's something oddly unnatural about having giant slick sticks attached to your feet. It makes normal tasks incredibly difficult. My friends laughed at me while I tried to get up and then a very nice lady tried to help me up. It didn't work very well so I took off my skis, got up, and put them back on. My third run looked exactly like the second run, fall and all, and a very handsome red jacketed stranger tried to help me up. I said, "Leave me here. I don't want anyone to see me like this." He chuckled awkwardly and then proceeded to bear hug me up. Thank you, Angel in red, and yes, yes I will be your wife.
I continued to fall a ton because I'm just not super great at anything that causes feet to lose touch with the ground. After a lot of falling, getting back up, and riding the magic carpet, our group decided to ride the lift up to the lodge at the top of the mountain for some food. I was told that there was an easy path down the mountain and I stupidly believed my friends. I know, I'm a fool. The ride up the lift went exactly as you could imagine it did. I fell while trying to get off and the operator stopped things immediately and ran up to me to make sure I was okay. Dazed and slightly embarrassed, I laughed it off and proceeded to hobble with one ski on to the side to regroup. I decided to take both skis off and walk down to the lodge because the hill was just so steep. I knew I could ski down it, but I also knew I couldn't stop and that I would just end up slamming into something or falling again.
The time in the lodge was a welcomed break from the treacherous outside. We laughed, ate, and swapped stories. It was great. I knew time was coming for us to head back outside and I just wasn't feeling it, so I asked a strange man if I could ride down back to the base of the mountain with him in his van. I know, I know. I'm an idiot. This kind man said yes, but my friends told me I wasn't allowed to do that. I got back into my skis and said a quick prayer. It was time to get down that bad boy. I went down the "easy" path with my friends Mary and Justin. The rest of our group were basically Olympians and went down the hard path. No thank you. I fell two times within the first five minutes and couldn't get back up. I laughed so hard but was also super frustrated. I reconsidered ditching all my gear and going to find the nice man who so sweetly offered to drive me down in the woods, in the snow, and in the dark. What a gem, right?
There seemed to be a little fork in the path and Mary told us to follow her, so Justin and I did. When your friend who has done something before tells you to follow her, you do. Here's where it starts to go so wrong. She actually led us off the path instead of keeping us on it. We fell into four feet of fresh snow. My skis were sticking straight up and I was crying laughing. It was a worst case scenario. Justin proceeds to fall and gets stuck in the snow. I attempt to come to his rescue to help him up but get stuck and fall as well. I almost slip off the side of the path. Mary is stuck in the snow. We're all laughing laughing so hard that we're almost soiling ourselves and some people begin to say some colorful words. If there was a camera on us, that clip would be the most popular thing on the internet. Our friends, who left us probably thirty minutes prior, decide to come look for us because we've taken way too long. They find us. They laugh at us. I fall again. We finally get down probably twenty minutes later. What should have been a ten minute trip turned into an almost hour long adventure.
I am essentially the Luis Mendoza of skiing. I didn't (and still don't) know how to stop. No one taught me. I thought it would come naturally. That's not really the case. Oh, and somewhere in all of my falling, I got a concussion. Yep, my head had been hurting the past couple of days so I went to the doctors and they administered a test which essentially told me, "Girl- you be concussed." It's not super serious, unless I still have pain in a couple days. If that's the case, ciao. It's been nice knowing you. See you on the other side, brother.
All in all, it was a great memory and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Even getting stuck in the snow, in the dark, where I'm pretty sure we narrowly escaped being eaten to death by mountain creatures. I'd just wear a helmet this time.
